On 2/19/25 11:15, Rainer Canavan wrote:
-u, --unique
             with -c, check for strict ordering; without -c, output only the first of an equal run

does not provide any explanation what 'equal' or 'run' may mean. Maybe add something like "where equality is assessed only based on the keys and rules used to sort the output".

Thanks for the suggestion. Although that's a bit long for "sort --help", I take the point that equality comparison could be mentioned and installed the attached to try to make things clearer without adding so much length.
From 3324344820b6f3566ed659befe9bbfcf2b1f1298 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Paul Eggert <egg...@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2025 13:17:48 -0800
Subject: [PATCH] sort: improve -u brief doc

* src/sort.c (usage): Reword -u help (Bug#76290).
---
 src/sort.c | 5 ++---
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/sort.c b/src/sort.c
index 4473987ef..b10183b6f 100644
--- a/src/sort.c
+++ b/src/sort.c
@@ -498,9 +498,8 @@ Other options:\n\
   -T, --temporary-directory=DIR  use DIR for temporaries, not $TMPDIR or %s;\n\
                               multiple options specify multiple directories\n\
       --parallel=N          change the number of sorts run concurrently to N\n\
-  -u, --unique              with -c, check for strict ordering;\n\
-                              without -c, output only the first of an equal run\
-\n\
+  -u, --unique              output only the first of lines with equal keys;\n\
+                              with -c, check for strict ordering\n\
 "), DEFAULT_TMPDIR);
       fputs (_("\
   -z, --zero-terminated     line delimiter is NUL, not newline\n\
-- 
2.48.1

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